Local News

Coming together for mental health

Children with mental health issues will have better access to specialized educational services come Sept. 10 with the opening of Converge Day Treatment Center in Fort Morgan.

The arrival of such a center in Morgan County has been long-anticipated, said Director of Converge and Psychologist Monica Buettel.

She first noticed the need for a center to help children with mental disabilities in northeast Colorado while working for the Fort Morgan School District as a psychologist.

"The need kept coming up for an elementary day treatment center" in Morgan County, Buettel said. "The issue had come up every year for the past seven years."

The Converge Day Treatment Center will be a place to educate children between the ages of 5 and 12 who have mental health conditions, like social or emotional disabilities and autism. Converge holds a strong goal to help these students "achieve, maintain or reestablish emotional and/or physical health" so they may enter or re-enter a regular full-day school program, without the need for residential care, according to Converge's comprehensive plan.

Residential care involves removing a child from home and putting them in a hospital-like setting, which can be traumatic for young children, said Philip Buettel, Monica's husband and assistant teacher for Converge.

"There is a huge benefit to keeping a kid's life as normal as possible without throwing this huge wrench into it and disrupting their lives in order to give them treatment," he said.

Converge aims to keep elementary-aged students from entering residential care and put them back into school, all while providing a comfortable school-like environment.

Children who are selected to enter Converge will experience a full school day, starting at 7:45 a.m. ending at 3:15 p.m., with activities scheduled in between. However, Converge will also provide treatment specifically designed for each student through programs related to their Individualized Education Plans, or IEP's.

"It is a combination of a full-day school, plus it is a therapeutic center," Monica Buettel said.

Converge won't open until Sept. 10. The staff is waiting for final approval from the Colorado Department of Education to receive "Approved Facility School" status, allowing Converge to receive state funds.

Converge also teamed up with the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, which sends interns from the psychology department.

Converge also likely will receive an annual operations budget of between $150,000 and $200,000 from state and federal sources.

Before Converge came to the forefront, there was not a day treatment center for elementary-aged students in Morgan County, or even in the northeast part of Colorado, Monica Buettel said.

There is a similar program in Brush called STEPS, but that program is for middle school-aged students who have severe behavior and emotional problems, according to the Centennial Mental Health Center's website.

Monica Buettel said that once Converge goes into full-swing starting Sept. 10, it will keep more elementary-aged students out of residential care programs.

"We have ended up sending students to residential care in Denver because there wasn't a day treatment available for younger children," she said. "That is the reason behind the center. We really want to reduce the need for kids who go to residential. We want to work with the families, keep them at home because I think it is traumatic for them when they have to be institutionalized."

Alternatively, Converge can act as a "step-down" for kids leaving residential care looking to re-enter school, Monica Buettel said. Going from residential care back into school is often too big a step.

Converge will only take in six students at their 324 E. Railroad Ave. location this year, she said. But the program will expand to bring in more students, as there is a need in the northeast part of Colorado.

"There is definitely a need in this community for a facility that treats that specialized group of students," said Fort Morgan School District Superintendent Ron Echols. "The district absolutely supports anything that supports kids, and having that kind of resource within this region of Colorado is very good for all students."

The need Monica saw for a day treatment center is why she wanted to establish Converge in Fort Morgan, she said.

"Because we are a rural area, there are pieces that we are missing in terms of the services available for children, but we have a lot of needs," she said.

More than 50 children in the Fort Morgan School District area are intellectually disabled or have a specific learning disability, according to data collected by CDE. No data was available for the number of autistic children in the Fort Morgan School District area.

Overall, about 378 disabled children are in the Fort Morgan School District area, which includes hearing impairments, visual impairments, physical disabilities, speech or language impairments and other disabilities, according to the CDE.

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